History and Background: ORT France

The year 2001 marks 80 years since ORT France was established as part of a campaign to raise desperately needed funds from Western Jewish communities in order to maintain the ORT programs in Russia and to help the many Jews in distress there. ORT France soon became an operational center in its own right, and adult education classes were taking place in Paris as early as 1925. Miraculously, ORT managed to continue operating in France for a considerable time under Nazi occupation, remaining active until the 1943 stranglehold.

As tens of thousands of German Jewish refugees arrived in France, ORT initiated vocational retraining programs to help integrate them into French life or prepare them for jobs in other countries.

In the 1950's and 1960's, political turmoil in North Africa led to a mass exodus of long-established Jewish communities from the region. Many went to Israel, but large numbers chose to make a new life in France. ORT then found itself with a new task-to assist the absorption and education of tens of thousands of adults and youngsters from those communities.

From the 1980's, ORT's curriculum and courses underwent fundamental changes. As in other countries, high-tech began to displace the need for traditional skills. The demand now was for higher-level courses of study leading to university entrance and employment opportunities at higher levels of engineering and technology. ORT France responded by providing advanced science and technology courses and university preparation programs.

Today, within France's Jewish population of 650,000, ORT schools provide an important choice for the community. First, they offer a sound Jewish education. Second, ORT's schools provide a practical approach to the study of science and technology. In the modern climate, ORT's practical approach of delivering secular education in a Jewish environment rather than a traditional, European, academic manner is seen as the more likely to lead to rewarding employment opportunities.

ORT also provides an essential service to adult members of the community who are facing displacement because of technological, social or other changes. At its schools, ORT provides relevant retraining to provide the adult students with new skills to open doors for new employment opportunities.

Today, ORT France has the largest network of ORT schools and colleges in Western Europe and provides both schooling and vocational adult education at its seven schools in centers in Paris, Strasbourg, Lyon, Toulouse and Marseilles.

ORT Montreuil (or How ORT Transformed an Old Pasta Factory into a Renowned ORT School)

ORT Montreuil in the Montreuil suburb of Paris, a combination high school, post-graduate school and adult learning center, is the oldest of France's eight ORT schools, and the pride of ORT France. The unqualified success of the school is evident in its students' excellent test scores and immediate job placement-approximately 90% of ORT Montreuil's students are hired immediately after graduation.

The original building was a former pasta factory built in 1920 (and acquired and modified in 1947 by ORT, with significant assistance from Women's American ORT and American ORT).

Though the school is open to everyone, 90 percent of the students are Jews from Paris and the surrounding suburbs.

CRISIS: Today, ORT Montreuil's buildings are no longer adequate to support the demands of a modern school, delivering high-tech education courses:

Classrooms are too small.

General building services are old and in need of repair and renewal.

Improved recreational and personal study facilities are needed.

Security and safety provisions fall short of modern acceptable standards.

RESPONSE: In order to maintain its high standards of education and to make room for the increasing numbers of students seeking admission, ORT Montreuil has begun an urgently needed program of modernization and refurbishment:

ORT France plans to rebuild and re-equip the interior of the school to enable it to deliver a series of new computer and technology related courses.

Each of the new courses will have its own department and facilities within a designated area of the multistoried school plant.

The first part of the renovation program commenced in the summer of 1999 with the completion of the project expected in early 2004. The total cost of the project in US dollars is approximately $10.8 million.

PROBLEM: A newly renovated ORT Montreuil with more usable space and increased enrollment, however, means little without providing the supporting infrastructure of furnishings, equipment, textbook, state-of-the-art computer technology and the security needed for our students to learn in a safe and secure environment.

SOLUTION: After a long hiatus, since the time when Women's American ORT successfully raised the funds for a new kitchen in the ORT Strasbourg school, Women's American ORT is once again reaching her hands across the ocean to show support for ORT France by undertaking the ORT Montreuil Campaign. We look forward to our membership's interest, involvement and generous support of the effort to help our ORT family in France.

When completed, the newly renovated and refurbished ORT Montreuil will have more usable space and will be able to accommodate 200 additional students per year over the present 600 currently enrolled-a vital contribution in providing more Jewish students the opportunity to take advantage of the excellence of an ORT education delivered in a modern, refurbished and safe building with the latest equipment and teaching facilities.